Letters: Dodging e-scooters at Wynyard Quarter ruins walk

Auckland has put a lot of effort into making the waterfront attractive. Photo / Hayden Woodward

Letters to the Editor

Heaps of money was spent doing up the Wynyard Quarter, turning it from an old port area into a flash new spot where everyone’s meant to hang out.

Well, there’s a big problem nobody saw coming when shared spaces were introduced. E-scooters and e-bikes. Seriously, what should have been a pleasant stress-free walk along the waterfront turned into a game of “dodge the scooter”.

On a recent Sunday, I found myself constantly having to look behind because these things came zooming past way faster than they should. None of the riders wore helmets and many of the scooters had two up.

You’ve got all these people – tourists taking photos, families with little kids running around, couples strolling – and these scooters and bikes just weaving through everyone like it’s some kind of obstacle course.

No policing or control. It’s like the Wild West.

It’s ironic, time and money making an area really nice, fancy restaurants and stuff, but taking a peaceful walk means having to worry about getting cleaned up by someone racing past presumably at an illegal speed.

I suppose it’s too late to put the genie back into the bottle? Isn’t it?

James Gregory, Parnell.

Ferry comparisons

Mike Baker (January 11) states that the country can’t afford new ferries for Cook Strait because New Zealand is broke.

The international credit rating agencies have a different, and much more positive, assessment and the country’s debt, compared with equivalent countries, is relatively low. It would be great if our debt were lower, however, we may need to borrow to invest in productivity-improving assets.

On the new ferries and associated infrastructure Baker is also wrong to say the infrastructure wasn’t budgeted for. The business case clearly includes provision for infrastructure. That budget was done to enable detailed design to be done.

Design standards were raised due to the Kaikōura earthquake and requirements were introduced to protect the infrastructure from possible increases in sea level. Those factors, and rising construction costs, contributed to the increase in costs for infrastructure.

There is an implicit assumption that ferries, and the related infrastructure that rail wagons can roll on/off, is more expensive than ferries suitable solely for road traffic.

That may not be the case because the landside area for the transfer operation will be around triple the area required for roll-on/roll-off rail and the savings in the cost of the linkspan and having tracks on one deck of the ferry may be significantly less than the tripling in cost of the rail freight handling area.

The KiwiRail business case addressed the issue of the cost of two large ferries and three smaller ferries, all fully rail-enabled. I look forward to seeing a realistic comparison of the full costs of rail-enabled (roll-on/roll-off) ferries compared with ferries that aren’t rail-enabled.

Once that is available then the decision on the way forward will be evident and can be made.

If there are concerns regarding borrowing levels, then change the scope on some of the over specified dual carriageway Roads of National Significance to two-plus-one roads and deploy those cost reductions to make this essential link in the transport network more resilient.

Jon Eriksen, Parnell.

Living choices

The current wildfires burning down vast areas of Los Angeles are horrific.

I have several family members who know or suspect that homes that they grew up in or raised their children in are gone. Fortunately for them, they currently live elsewhere, but are still affected by the losses.

While I have sympathy for them and the thousands of people who have lost everything, I am haunted by the thought that they chose to live in an area where there was a reasonable chance of catastrophic fires.

With the evidence of climatic changes building and the impact these changes have on the likelihood of fires, does their choice to live in these areas become a factor?

Here in New Zealand, we too have the likelihood of fires as well as coastal inundation and earthquakes and yet we as a nation dream of living in the very areas most likely to suffer from catastrophic events.

Therefore, we too have to factor in our choice to live in these areas.

This is the price that the global population is paying for not doing their individual part in avoiding the climate changing.

Maybe with the experience in Los Angeles and elsewhere including the East Coast of our North Island, people will at least start to think about how their actions affect the world’s climate.

If enough of us do things on an individual basis, then the lack of action from the world’s governments can be replaced by the action of their citizens.

Dunstan Sheldon, Hamilton.

Tennis at waterfront

Now is the time to bite the bullet and relocate the National Tennis Centre to a purpose-built tennis venue on the Auckland waterfront with a retractable roof. This venue would have easy access by ferry, rail, bike and plenty of car parking.

It would be funded by a combination of public, private, business and wealthy benefactors. A series of national lotteries could be another source.

Not one more dollar should be wasted reinventing the Stanley St facility.

Bruce Tubb, Devonport.